In 1845 Henry David Thoreau retreated to his cabin at Walden Pond in Massachusetts to experiment with a life of simplicity. He kept detailed records of his environment including when the pond froze and thawed and when each variety of plant bloomed in spring. Less than 30 miles away the industrial revolution was well underway at the Lowell Mills that employed over 10,000 people, mostly women, to generate fabric for an explosion of ready-made American clothing. Today we own closets full of clothing and mass made material goods that would have boggled the mind of the average nineteenth century American. Recent research has utilized Thoreau’s detailed observations on the plants of Walden Pond and revealed that those same plants are blooming an average of three weeks earlier than they did in 1845. It is no longer disputed that human activity is contributing to climate change, so what have we gained and what are we losing? What did these mill girls gain in financial independence, and what did they lose as they disconnected with the natural world and entered the life of dormitories and machines?Of Looms and Lilies is an artistic investigation of the proliferation of material wealth generated by the industrial revolution and its effect on both our personal and spiritual lives and its wider impact on Climate change. It is also a simple conversation between a nineteenth century factory worker and a contemporary woman. What might they say to one another? What might they learn?

Recent projects...

In late 2009, I began work on a project about multiple ways of perceiving the world. My interest was in the power western thought has on the way that we experience and interpret the world around us. Certainly there are many cultures around the planet that have alternative ways of perceiving and interacting with the world. I was particularly interested in what happens when these oppositional ways of perceiving collide. Then I read Jon Turk's book, The Raven's Gift. Turk was a trained scientist who had just such an encounter and his experience of the world around him is permanently altered. Jon writes nonfiction about his expeditions by kayak. He is a world re-known traveler who has kayaked the arctic multiple times, Cape Horn and the Solomon Islands. He has explored Siberia by cross country skiing and re-connected indigenous coastal communities in Eastern Russia with those of the interior who still practice traditional reindeer herding. Jon’s work as an explorer is staggering and his stories from the Kamchatka Peninsula tell a provocative tale of both the tragedy of deep cultural loss and the beauty of alternative ways of perceiving/living in the world. Jon and I have joined creative forces to create a full evening length performance that documents selected portions of Jon’s experience through both movement and spoken word. Together we chose seven stories from his travels. Jon will tell his stories as part of the performance. Each story is followed by a section of integrated dance that propels the essence of the story into metaphoric imagery that unfolds in the audience’s imagination. Our hope is that in developing this model, viewers will experience the story as their own and connect more deeply to the tales. The story isn’t just something that happened to Jon “out there.” It is happening in the performance space in the very moment of the piece.It was a truly remarkable set of synchronicities that brought Jon and I together for this project. One always has the option to discount a synchronicity as a "mere coincidence," but to open your heart and follow will inevitably lead you to the sacred space.